how to podcast.
Start learning

A little help finding your next step

What are you working on?

A few good places to start.

Start hereWhat is a podcast?A plain-English definition: episodes, the RSS feed, subscriptions and how a podcast differs from a video or a radio show.Start hereA short history of podcastingFrom RSS enclosures in 2000 to iTunes support in 2005, the long quiet years, Serial and the video-podcast era.Start hereSeven reasons to create your own podcastWhy people start shows: expertise, community, a voice, teaching, business, creative practice and long-lived archives.PlanHow to podcast: the four PsThe whole process in four stages: plan, produce, publish and promote. Start here if you want the map before the steps.

Press Esc to close.

Tool

Podcast file size calculator

Enter an episode’s length and MP3 bit rate to see its file size, then estimate the bandwidth your downloads use each month.

File size per episode
–
Storage per month
–
Bandwidth per month
–

How it’s calculated

An MP3 at a constant bit rate uses the same amount of data every second. File size = bit rate (kilobits per second) × length (seconds) ÷ 8, giving kilobytes. For example, 30 minutes at 64 kbps is 64 × 1,800 ÷ 8 = 14,400 KB, about 14.4 MB. Tags and artwork embedded in the file add a little more.

Bandwidth assumes each download fetches the whole file once. In reality some listeners stream part of an episode and some apps download it more than once, so treat the figure as a rough guide.

Which bit rate should I use?

  • 64 kbps mono: clear speech at a small file size. A good default for talk shows.
  • 96 kbps mono: a little more headroom when your show has music.
  • 128 kbps stereo: for shows with stereo music or sound design.
  • Higher rates make bigger files with little audible benefit for speech.

See how to export an MP3 in Audacity and why bandwidth matters when choosing a podcast host.